xorxes has put together a lovely morphology algorithm for us, and he
and Pierre have beaten on it quite a bit. So, let's take a look at
it.
I don't necessarily expect you all to actually read the thing; I
expect xorxes to provide a list of things that he thinks might be
controversial and for us to go over that. If it turns out in the
future that someone's beliefs about what the algorithm does are
violated by the actual algorithm, we can always come back and fix
it.
Initial voting time is set at 2 weeks; closure on 25 Feb 2005.
-Robin

Various comments in no particular order.

If we vote in the Morphology Algorithm, we are agreeing to the setting of
what the valid word-forms are. It is obvious that fu'ivla forms and cmavo
forms have changed, but nowhere is there a reasonbly concise statement of
what the new forms are.

The "algorithm" is program code. One usually checks a program against the
desired results to see if it works. We have no statement of the desired
results. I can't read the code without more explanation. For example : "&
indicates that the element to the right must follow" [follow what? it's at
the beginning - example: BU <- &cmavo (b u ) &postword] "but the marked
element itself" [the thing to the right of the &, I presume] "does not
absorb anything" [what does this mean?].

Correct me if I'm wrong, but have we just added things like "sia" /sya/ and
"rua" /rwa/ to the CVV space? In making Lojban, we made a deliberate
decision to exclude these (which were present in Loglan) for 2
reasons. Some of them are too hard to say ("rui"), especially as a single
syllable. Some, like "sia", tend to degenerate into other sound sequences
(as English "sion" endings are now pronounced "shun").

What are the valid fu'ivla forms? It looks to me like "jritata" is valid
(initial cluster OK, passes slinku'i test, doesn't break up into gismu
and/or rafsi). So, given "All fu'ivla can be used as final
rafsi", "prijritata" is no longer a valid fu'ivla because it is
"pri"+jritata", right? Thus we can add to the "[to]slinku'i" test the
"prijritata" test to eliminate invalid fu'ivla. This seems too complex to me.

Also, we need to revise "slinku'i" itself a bit if r-hyphens are allowed
when not required. We have a valid lujvo "li'erla'i" (li'e + r +
la'i). If we allow someone to add an affix on the front without removing
the "r" ("tos + li'e + r + la'i), we then need to disallow a potential
fu'ivla "sli'erla'i" (originally OK - good initial cluster, doesn't break
down into rafsi and/or gismu, used to pass to+sli'erla'i "slinku'i" test
but now will not). Making fu'ivla is a mine-field.

In the presentation on Controversial topics, it looks like fu'ivla initial
clusters disallow sx (good!) - but not cx? "jl", "jr" "zl", "zr" are
allowed? "jk"?

If "non-y cmavo can have non-final rafsi by adding 'y", then are we
removing the restriction that there must be a consonant cluster in the
first 5 [non-'-non-y] letters? "oi'ycai'ylujvo". How do they attach on
the left if they're vowel-initial - eg: klama + o + sutra = klamy[what]sutra?

"cmene can have inital rafsi by adding iy". Can names have "iy"
internally, or is that disallowed like la/lai/la'i/doi? Must the name be
entirely unstressed if it doesn't have the penultimate syllable? I don't
think it causes a problem, but I'm not yet sure.

I notice there are 2 things that are being allowed to have rafsi by
following them by 'y: cmavo and fu'ivla. Does this cause a problem? Take
for example stura [gismu] + o'a [cmavo] + klama [gismu]. This would be,
stura'o'a'yklama (note: here, I'm presuming that the vowel-initial cmavo
will attach to the left using ', as vowel-initial fu'ivla do). But, might
"stura'o'a'yklama" instead break down as stura'o'a [fu'ivla] + klama? Or
is stura'o'a not a valid fu'ivla because it could break down into stura + '
+ o'a when in front of something else (oh boy - another test for
fu'ivla)? Which has precedence?